The International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS) was created in 1956 by the federation of the International Union of History of Science, which was founded in 1947, and the International Union of Philosophy of Science, founded in 1949. The two federating bodies became two Divisions of the Union, the Division of History of Science (DHS) and the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science (DLMPS). In 2005 and 2015, respectively, the DHS and DLMPS added 'and Technology' to their names, becoming DHST and DLMPST. The DHST and DLMPST agreed to adding 'and Technology' to the name of the Union in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Since the summer of 2015, the Union uses the name International Union for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST).

Three historical accounts, from the perspectives of ICSU, DHST and DLMPS respectively, are:

Frank Greenaway, Science International: A History of the International Council of Scientific Unions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996.

Robert Halleux and Benoît Severyns, 'Twenty-five years of international institutions', Llull: Revista de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias 26 (2003) 315-321. (Several statements about 'the Union' in this paper are in fact true only of DHS(T), for example the list of officers and the list of commissions.)

The federation into a single Union was accepted by the DLMPS and the DHS under pressure from ICSU and UNESCO. But there were always sharply differing interests, not only between the two Divisions but also between different groups within the DLMPS. Some of these differences are visible in the following historical accounts, each of them reflecting the perspective of a significant group in the early DLMPS: